Vigan City, Ilocos Sur is one of the famous places in the Phlippines and it is also

rich in history, literature, beautiful places, culture and foods.

Carlos Bulosan was born in the Philippines in the rural farming village of
Mangusmana, near the town of Binalonan (Pangasinan province, Luzon island). He was
the son of a farmer and spent most of his upbringing in the countryside with his family.
Like many families in the Philippines, Carlos’s family struggled to survive during times of
economic hardship. Many families were impoverished and many more would suffer
because of the conditions in the Philippines created by US colonization. Rural farming
families like Carlos’ family experienced severe economic disparity due to the growing
concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the economic and political elite.
Determined to help support his family and further his education, Carlos decided to come
to America with the dream to fulfill these goals. From several years of racist attacks,
starvation, and sickness, Carlos underwent surgery for tuberculosis in Los Angeles. His
health condition with tuberculosis forced him to undergo three operations where he lost
most of the right side of his ribs and the function of one lung. Yet, he recovered and
stayed in the hospital for about two years where he spent much of his time reading and
writing. The discrimination and unhealthy working conditions Carlos had experienced in
many of his workplaces encouraged him to participate in union organizing with other
Filipinos and various workers.  Bulosan died from tuberculosis at the age of 42, and
many of his other works were published posthumously. Today he celebrated as an early
postcolonial chronicler of the Filipino experience in America.
Carlos Bulosan is the first important literary voice for Filipinos in the United
States. Bulosan’s most famous novel, America Is in the Heart, was published in 1946.
It depicts the terrible living and working conditions of Filipino immigrants struggling to
survive in America. Bulosan came to the United States from the Philippines in the
early 1930s. He washed dishes, worked in canneries, and picked fruits and vegetables
up and down the West Coast, including the area in the Salinas Valley where many of
John Steinbeck’s novels take place. He eventually became a labor activist and tried to
address racial and economic discrimination in the United States. After meeting labor
organizer Chris Mensalves, he helped organize a union for fish cannery workers in
California. During a long period of poor health, Bulosan read the works of many
American writers, which helped improve his English and inspired him to become a
writer.

AMERICA IS IN THE HERT. First published in 1946, this autobiography of the

well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to
America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the
harvest trail in the rural West. Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors
that accompanied the migrant's life; but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing
witness to the terrible events he witnessed. This aims to provide a broad perspective
 contextualizing Bulosan's major work in light of the decline of the U.S. Empire and
the neofascist resurgence in the Philippines and many parts of the world. America Is
in the Heart stands apart from the body of American literature in its form as well as in
its content. In its noncompliance with traditional novelistic form, America, which was
written about Filipino immigrant experiences of the 1930s, defies inclusion in the
traditional Anglo-American canon. With Bulosan’s disregard—perhaps tacit defiance
—of novelistic conventions, America stands as a de facto redefinition of aesthetic
principles. Moreover, the protagonist’s geographic and emotional journey forces
readers to redefine the spatial parameters of the United States, a place in which
geography is written on the historical map of imperialism and etched into the hearts
of immigrants of color who sought a life framed by falsely sold ideals.
Like most Filipino people in America at the time, Bulosan experienced severe
racial discrimination, but he found community with other Filipinos and joined the labor
movement that fought to unionize ethnic workers on the Pacific Coast. He also taught
himself English and pursued his lifelong passion for writing. In his short life, he wrote
poems, short stories, journalistic pieces, and novels. His most famous work is the
semi-autobiographical novel America is in the Heart (1946).
In America is in the Heart, Carlos Bulosan struggles to reconcile America’s
supposed commitment to liberty and equality with the harsh reality of a racist society
that is prejudiced against Filipinos. In Bolosan’s book, American identity is
inextricably connected with race, and the country’s majority-white population
dehumanizes Filipinos as racial “others.” This allows white people in power to assault
Filipinos and deny them basic legal rights, all while still upholding the façade of
equality. Initially, Carlos cannot make sense of why some Americans are obsessed
with race while others are not. However, his later work as a labor organizer reveals
that racism serves both social and economic functions: by dehumanizing Filipinos,
white people attempt to reduce them to beasts of burden, whom they force to work in
the fields and factories. Bulosan sees American identity as a social hierarchy in
which white people dominate over subordinate minority groups—a hierarchy that lets
America welcome Filipino immigrants not for their humanity, but for the cheap labor
they provide.
Carlos Bulosan wrote during an era of complicated relations between America and
the Philippines. Following the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Filipino-
American War (1899-1902), the United States annexed the Philippines from Spain. As
a result, large numbers of Filipinos migrated to the United States to fill agricultural
jobs. Between 1906 and 1946, 150,000 Filipinos settled primarily in California and
Hawaii. In California, an influx of Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the late-19th
and early-20th centuries prompted white racial backlash. This backlash resulted in
discriminatory laws such as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited all
immigration of Chinese laborers, and the 1913 Alien Land Law, which banned land
ownership by Japanese citizens in California. Although the 1924 American
Immigration Law categorized Filipinos as colonized “nationals” (but not U.S. citizens),
white Americans often viewed Filipinos as yet another “savage” Asian group, and
treated them accordingly. In America is in the Heart, Carlos Bulosan depicts the
vitriolic racism and prejudice that Filipinos in America experienced on a daily basis.
Filipinos were prohibited from entering “whites only” establishments, banned from
marrying white people, given the worst jobs, and treated as derelicts by police. Like
other non-white authors who chronicled their experiences as members of a racial
minority in majority-white American society, Bulosan tells his own story as part of a
marginalized group’s difficult journey towards becoming “real” Americans. This novel
is originally written in English language.
The Asian Division of the Library of Congress held a daylong symposium on
author Carlos Bulosan, titled "America Is in the Heart for the 21st Century." Bulosan
depicted the early Filipino migrant experience in the United States and is best known for
his book "America Is in the Heart." The Library, in conjunction with the Asian Division
Friends Society (ADFS), coordinated the program as a centennial project to
commemorate the first-wave migration to Hawaii by Filipino nationals. Our Own Voice,
an online literary journal for Filipinos in the diaspora, is the ADFS's partner in the project
to reintroduce the writings of Bulosan to the public.
The main themes emerge from the impetus behind this journey and the struggles
that ensue.
 President Elpidio Quirino National High School

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Literary Research Focusing on the Prominent Writer and Literary Text

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As a requirement in

21st Century Literature from the Philippines and the World

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Submitted by:

MABUTAS, Monica
HUMSS B-12

Submitted to:

Ms. Ruth Balderas

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November 9, 2020